TM2500 gas turbine restores oil refinery power in short order
Fast, Seamless Installation for Temporary Power
Case Study - Challenge
...In September 2005, the Valero Energy Corporation experienced its first shutdown in decades when Hurricane Rita’s 125-mph winds and 8-foot storm surge left much of the plant under 2 feet of water.
With local power service unavailable, the refinery needed a temporary system to provide power, so that it could resume operations. The traditional way to furnish short-term power -- by hooking up 20.1 megawatt (MW) diesel generating sets – is a time-consuming and complex installation that also includes a transformer, cabling, fuel tanks and hoses. Valero needed a simpler, smaller system that could be installed quickly and fit into a tight space.Case Study - Solution
GE's Aeroderivative Gas Turbine business supplied the refinery with a TM2500 gas turbine, a blackstart diesel generator, and an automatic transfer switch. The TM2500 was developed in part to meet demand from both oil and gas companies for temporary distributed power during planned maintenance, as well as unplanned shutdowns, such as those caused by natural disasters.
The TM2500 provides 22.5 MW and fits easily into four trailers, one a piece for the turbine-generator, inlet filter, exhaust and backup equipment, making it more powerful and much less sprawling than a cumbersome string of diesel generator sets.
Case Study - Results
The TM2500 trailer storage made the system easy to ship, and was quickly assembled onsite, with minimal foundation or prep work. “It was a very seamless process,” recalled Edward Fye, the GE Field Application Engineer that supervised the project.
Six days after Valero signed the contract for the TM2500, the unit was fully installed and delivering auxiliary power for three months. This considerably shrank the refinery’s downtime. Within a month after Rita passed through, the refinery had resumed production well before the local utility could restore permanent power to the site.
